don´t let them get you down

While I do not feel much on the “inside” of Valparaíso, what I do know, has definitely gossip potential. Valpo features the highest number of dogs of any Chilean city, for starters. This is unnerving as I recently had to get treatment for pulgas (flees!)!
A maybe more public matter: The chief of the PDI – the equivalent of the U.S.’s FBI – had to step down after a child prostitution scandal, which took place in Valparaíso. PDIs had apparently participated in the scandal and the chief seems to have covered for them. There has been a series of corruption scandals in the PDI over the past two years, ranging from bribery and destruction of evidence to “adulteration of an alcohol test to involvement in a ring that protected criminals by falsifying documents” (says the Santiago Times).

By the way, I am now able to read (and understand) The Clinic, Chile´s very own – and only, as far as I can see – magazine for political caricature/serious opposition/culture information/language joking. So it has all that I desire. It is named so after Pinochet´s sojourn in the London Clinic ...Once you get over the sexism it has a lot of great information - sometimes funny, sometimes appalling, titillating, inspiring, unnerving - but never boring.

With regards to commodities, I am generally appalled at the lack of selection and competition here. There was even an article about it in The Clinic which said Chile is lacking a law which exists in Europe and Northern America, which allows persecution and sufficient punishment for price agreements / collusion. And you can feel it. I have never seen more relaxed enterprises, with hardly any price difference, i.e. competition between their products. The ofertas and remate here remind me of elections in the Former Eastern Europe :: it´s cosmetics for form´s sake.

Equally annoying is that the big three enterprises have all about the same stuff. All of which is equally not-presented by bored overstaff who react annoyed when you ask them something. At other times there is one or two lonesome guys working their ass off for a horde of rude customers.
Rs theory is that this is Valparaíso, more than Chile. On the other hand, a guy – on the expatriate-blogosphere –, I quote: “no one gets out of your way on the street, hardly anyone walks on those moving walkways (and blocks everyone else from trying to walk), no one says sorry if they knock into you, you barely get a grunt when you walk into a shop from the workers, drivers are selfish etc” He also said, correctly, that this is how Chileans behave in public, you better get used to it, don´t take it personal and be aware that it is public not private behavior.

philosophical days

It is strange to follow the internet wars from here - internet equality/net neutrality being attacked for the greater good of coming down hard on copyright infringement, fighting against the “Wild West” of the internet (who ever wanted to be the cavallery, really), government snooping in Europe – Maybe I should vote for the pirates next time. There goes your uninformed voter… and now I have to wait four years!

But what I wanted to say, it is surreal to follow these conversations from here – where there is not even the famous “Unrechtsbewußtsein” - or more simply, no fear of being caught. (That reminds me of an interesting riddle I had recently: If you say you´re sorry for something when you are caught – are you only sorry that you are caught? And if so, does the “sorry” count? I think it was on This American Life, wasn´t it?)

Here, favorite pastime and present for the greater good seems to be the generous sharing of your cell phone music (in mostly abysmal quality, I have to add, a fact that is not being helped by earsplitting volume).
This made me think (and I have to admit and apologize in advance that I was never very busy with these questions, out of sheer mental laziness.)

So, when can you share and when not?

If I listen to a song that only I bought, together with a friend or just another person who did not pay for that song, I am obviously not supposed to be cheating copyright laws … But if the friend or person listens to my music when I am not even there?
When is it cheating?
Do I have to know the person I am sharing my music with? What about parties (bring an other, significant or random..)?
Does the person have to be in the same space as you, when I give the music? What happens if I want to give music to my brother in China, do I have to wait till I see him in person, or at least, not in digital form? And what happens to that phony art thing then, where people in New York saw people in London at the same time via satellite or something, did that not also include music? (and even if it did not, what if it had included music? Yes, I know they probably paid, but what if someone had a cellphone and was playing music on the cellphone….)
Is it a question of numbers – sharing with 6 friends is okay, sharing with 100 is not? (I can only repeat, what about parties?!)

Or is the giving okay, only the taking is not? That would at least be Christian ;) But then, the whole point of coming down on the filesharing is that it is not for your economic benefit isn´t it - so are we not being sanctioned for being better, less materialistic human beings (at least if you share. If you mostly take, your soul is probably in as bad a state as ever).
But they are persecuting those who share, right, less than those who take. Is that only because there are too many takers (logistical problems) or is there a whole conspiracy against anti-capitalist impulses?

Sorry to bore you if you all made up your mind about this / are following those discussions / have understood the legal defense of both parties. I know I must sound like a fourteen-year-old having her first philosophical moment. Special apologies to N, T, and Mr Dukat…

internet! this time for real!

I have nothing to say but need to share this news so... let me think a minute...

yes

Good things today: strawberries at 50 cts / kg. am also partial to cherimoya, something I did not even know before. is known as custard apple in English.

that was very chilean, by the way: lots of talk about prices and food...

pets, food, tables

After reacting for weeks to imagined cat shadows in the apartment (second stage of brain disintegration?), I did almost buy a baby duck at the local fería. (Did you know how cute they are?! OMG! etc) I was going completely chica-chica while R was driveling of how a chicken (the other option) or a duck are NOT happy in an apartment, how they will grow, and whether I will want to eat them then... I ignored the latter part and said they told me all of that before I bought my cat, too.
And then I retorted with Friends as precedent. I don´t really know why I am such a chicken. But I did not buy my baby duck.
Instead we bought the best table in the world and ever. It is big and fancy (extendable ends), and made of wood of a pretty kind and color.
Tomorrow we´ll go to the fería again (a table is great, but it´s probably even better with chairs). I´ll see about the duck thing then. And keep you posted.

Internet!

The new apartment is slowly becoming more inhabitable. I love it because there are windows for every room, the place is sunny, warm and bright, the floor throughout is made of parquet, and there is a bidet (how decadent is that!). We are currently using about 1.5 of the available (3) rooms, plus the living room, or as they say, el líving. Fascinating how (and when) English enters the Spanish language… Other examples: There are “líders” who are indeed leaders, but Líder is also the name a supermarket chain (the other chains are called Jumbo and Extra, apparently the level of entrepreneurial “creativity” in baptizing is universal). At university people are studying for a “bachillerato.” There is tipear, clickear (Haz clic aquí), a political “mitin,” “el flash” (for cameras) and “sushi,” spoken, at least by R, like “sutschi.”

Now. we have a kitchen, sponsored by R.s parents. Both a kitchen and a fridge were supposed to come around now, so it was fun when the kitchen came about a week ago. More funny still is that we can´t use it. The kitchen takes its energy from a gas ballon which we don´t have. So, the last days`task was to find that gas ballon. Well! Everybody you ask says, well everybody has one (or more). You just change the empty ones against a full one.
Some gas-filling guy with cross eyes and teeth so crooked and yellow he seemed to have jumped right out of one of those colorful 19th century novels, deliberated selling us one, but then reflected that he might need it, too… This kind of search is something completely unknown to me.

First there is the obligatory no, which to my ear, always sounds rude for lack of sugarcoating (no thank you, maybe later, ups we´ve run out of that one…) But Chileans seem to just save words, letters, time… Another example. Scene: an internet place, me leaving. Girl: Numero? – Me: Cuatro. – Algun imprimado? – No. – Ciento cincuenta – (exchange of money) - Gracias. – A ti. Over and out.

Anyway. What I like about this kind of search is that you start to be happy when someone says, you know there is someone/something/I´ve heard someone say once there might be, on occasion, a guy on Independencía and Las Heras. And then you go. There is nothing of course on Independencia and Las Heras, at least nothing obvious. You start looking around, asking around. The day before yesterday, we went to about 3-4 places in that fashion, finding not a single damned ballon.


Today at 11am, we have a rendez-vous with destiny, a guy who allegedly has a ballon. In that spirit, yours truly…


PS: Has anyone seen “Inglourious Basterds” and has an opinion s/he would like to treat me to? I need some input. My brain is kind of stuck between repulsion, high-speed intertext readings, and some kind of carnal pleasure (the technologics minus the let´s-show-the-groins-in-close-up violence)

we are the world.. we are the children... (why why why IS my brain torturing me?)

Being sick

Well. I loved Sontag´s Illness as metaphor so much it seems apt to have an(other) entry on sickness. And timely, too!
I have come down with pneumonia. It is almost exciting. I cannot remember ever having had pneumonia. I even stopped smoking a week after I got back to Chile! The word pneumonia sounds scary and oldschool and it reminds me of TBC which again reminds me of Klaus Kordon`s “Die roten Matrosen” and the untimely death of its hero´s love pretty blond interest. And of course, TBC reminds me of Susan Sontag who writes in her great "Illness as Metaphor" that the “noble” death of the exihilarated thin (no appetite), “transcending” white (!) death of TBC was romantized in literature whereas things like cancer are an abject, gross, blaming-the-victim kind of sickness…
Well. Maybe the only thing I will really learn here is how to wait. It is certainly the only thing that I should learn, soon, if I am not to loose my mind! Rodrigo told me upon one of my impatient fits that impatience is a sign of having been pampered as a small child when all your needs were met immediately (apparently too much so). That kind of comment shuts you up, let me tell you… Although I`m talking “shut up” in the comic figure kind of way, incoherently mumbling and with clenched fists in your pocket…
Example: I went to the doctor. My appointment was at 6.30 but I had had another appointment at 4, and I did not feel up to clamber up the hill twice that day – feeling lousy, with heavy coughing, some kind of allergic skin reaction, completely congested and many more disgusting details I will spare you… Also, I foolishly thought showin up early at the practice might help squeeze me in a little earlier. When I entered the doctor´s office, at 7.15, I had certainly learnt I was wrong. It does not. Patience is a virtue and I haven´t got it.
The doctor however, was a real comic figure. He was small, bald, white-frocked, with a stetoskope stuck on his head quite permanently – are they called stetoskope? Those mirror-like things, a bit alien, like a hairband with a UFO attached to it. But he was friendly, entertaining, old-school (taking time for his patients, you see…). He insisted on showing Rodrigo the inside of my nose – “you should know what she looks like inside” (wtf!?!)-; I might mention that at this point various torture instruments were already stuck into my nose, so there was no possiblity of defense. After some more cleaning and coughing and explanations and a transcript to x-ray my lungs, I was also given a anti-histamin and anti-congestion shot – “gluttonal”! When my incomprehending outstretched arms did not waver, the syringe señora showed me: in the ass! Well! And I thought those days were gone!
I will return to my sickbed now, pop some more penicillin and wonder about my body, and after the narcisstic face changes into boredom, about other people´s bodies...